Tabs

The flavour of Kolkata

Kolkata Maidan- The lungs of the city. Lovingly shot by Arindam Patra.

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Fusion Food Fiesta at Casa Kitchen, 12th to 27th March 2016

Keeping up with its practice of coming up with a food festival every season of the year, Casa Kitchen, the fine dining vegetarian restaurant at Hotel Casa Fortuna on AJC Bose Road, near Camac Street, is holding Fusion Food Fiesta.

I like the experimentation that the restaurant keeps doing with its menu through such food festivals to offer its patrons new flavours besides the tried and tested north and north-west Indian dishes. The dishes that are favoured the most by the guests in these festivals make their way to the a la carte menu. So I don’t miss an invite from Casa Kitchen to a food festival and didn’t for this one too. I avoid the media meet and work out a suitable slot (generally evening) to sample the menu and the management happily accommodates. This way, the thoughts behind various dishes and their cooking process come clearer.

The corner sofa by the glass wall overlooking the busy AJC Bose Road and Gorky Sadan is my favourite seat. Enjoyed my fresh lime soda in a warm afternoon before the food arrived.

Fresh Lime Soda

It started off with Tomato Wonton Soup which is a Continental-Chinese fusion. It’s the good old cream of tomato soup with vegetable wontons in it. I love this tangy broth they prepare here and this variation with wontons was good too. It set the palate up for a long innings ahead.

Tomato Wonton Soup

The Yoghurt & Lemon Soup was interesting. It’s a broth of beaten yoghurt mixed with butter with lemon and coriander added, making it an Indo-Chinese fusion. The salty taste of the yoghurt soup gently kissed by lemon brought a pep to the palate.

Yoghurt & Lemon Soup

Starters made a good opening with Vegetable Shami Kebab with Salsa. The perfectly done, rightly spiced shami kebabs played well on the palate in the company of the hot and tangy Mexican sauce.

Vegetable Shami Kebab with Salsa

Salsa sauce

Paneer Fritter served with Hot Garlic Sauce (Indian-Continental fusion with a Chinese sauce) was rather flat. Anything based on paneer will need to have an extra zing to appeal to my palate. This one was cheese-stuffed paneer fried with bread crumbs. The cheese seemed lacking in the bites. The sauce made up for the taste to some extent.

Paneer Fritter with Hot Garlic Sauce

Schezwan Paneer Tikka (Paneer again!), which was Szechwan sauce-marinated char-grilled paneer, was OK. This Indo-Chinese combo will be a little too hot for children.

Schezwan Paneer Tikka

The last one in starters that I sampled was Stuffed Potato with Cocktail Sauce. Baby potatoes with scooped out inside and stuffed with cheese mixed with pimentos and grilled to perfection. I am not an admirer of potato-based dishes, but the filling and especially the tangy cocktail sauce (a familiar condiment in Europe and US with seafood dishes) made it worthwhile.

Stuffed Potato with Cocktail Sauce

Tried the Mexican Pulao and Cheese Olive Nun with a side of Baked Conjee Veg & Macaroni in the main course. The latter is macaroni pasta first cooked with vegetables (Chinese-style) and white sauce, then covered with cheese, mixed with red sauce and baked. The spiciness of the red sauce didn’t counteract the light, creamy pasta inside. For a pasta lover like me, it was a delightful new experience!

Baked Conjee Veg & Macaroni

The Cheese Olive Naan is a variation of the regular naan. Good experimentation!

Cheese Olive Naan

The Mexican Pulao, served in a white handi created a burst of flavours inside the mouth. The Awadhi-style navratan pulao cooked with Mexican herbs had a refined, rich taste, sweet at places thanks to dry fruits, and played along well with the sharpness of Mexican herbs. It easily was the best highlight of the well-curated menu!

Mexican Pulao

Wound up the delectable meal with Garam Masala Brownie which I was told was a trending flavour in desserts. The rich chocolate brownie topped with chocolate sauce and Indian garam masala like cardamom was served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream sprinkled with garam masala powder. The brownie baked in-house was good as usual though didn’t taste much different, but the new flavour of the ice cream (thanks to the spices) was quite likeable.

Garam Masala Brownie

Only tomorrow is left before it draws to a close. Make up your mind if wish to savour a vegetarian meal with some interesting fusion.

Time: Lunch- 12.30-3.30 pm and dinner- 7.30-10.30 pm

Pocket pinch: Rs 1000 plus taxes for two

#GoodVegFood #FusionCuisine #VegFusion #CasaKitchen #VegFoodKolkata

If you liked reading the post, you may visit this blog's Facebook page (click on the link) and hit the 'Like' button to stay connected with the future updates on this blog and more on the page.